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Take a peek inside millions of pieces of luggage to see the impact some tourists' trinkets and keepsakes have on endangered animals. The News4's I-Team's Tisha Thompson reports. (Published Tuesday, May 20, 2014)

Updated at 8:45 AM EDT on Wednesday, May 21, 2014

It’s a warehouse with more than a million examples of the strange and unusual things people take or make from wild animals.

That's where U.S. Fish and Wildlife inspectors send animal contraband seized at customs from people who try to bring them into the country, despite the United States' strict laws limiting imports of animal products.

PHOTOS: Unusual Items at the National Wildlife Property Repository

The News 4 I-Team got a behind-the-scenes look at that warehouse -- and at customs inside Dulles International Airport as custom officers searched suitcase after suitcase for smuggled goods.

Across the country, federal inspectors confiscated 1.5 million items worth more than $12.2 million.

"How can there possibly be left anything living when you see the quantity and volume that comes in?" asked Doni Sprague, who manages the collection at US Fish and Wildlife's Denver warehouse.

Inspectors send their seizures to Sprague, who unpacks, catalogs and places each item on a shelf.

She showed us a common tourist item she sees here at the repository: a purse wrapped with the head and feet of a crocodile. "They killed a young crocodile to make a really tacky purse,” she said.

This is where experts start to see trends. They’ve recently noticed many boxes coming in full of seahorses used in Asian medicine.

"It's kind of a sense of dread that some of these animals, even in my children's lifetime, aren't going to be around," Sprague said.

There are shelves full of tiger heads -- and one tiger cub.

"This particular tiger was taken while it was in utero,” Sprague said. “So this tiger never even had an opportunity to be born or have a chance at survival."

After eighteen years of working in the repository, Sprague has developed a theory about why there's a market for animal products. "Part of this business is driven by people's need to have something so unique or no one else has," she said.

But, Sprague said, if it's made out of animal and you try to bring it into the country, there’s a good chance that that frog purse or that bear claw necklace will end up here in this government graveyard.